History of English 2015 Knowledge Fair

Your Projects:

We are going to have a "Knowledge Fair" today. You get to investigate something and then present it to the class over this week and during the next week. But you won't stand up and present to the whole class one at a time.

We will take turns setting up stations throughout the class. Some of you will man a station while the rest of the class is free to wander around the class, visiting different stations and interacting with the presenter. Visitors will also be able to hand out a limited number of stickers to the exhibits that they find most informative or interesting. About half-way through the class, we will rotate to a new groups of presenters.

What should you do for your presentation?

For your presentation, you should investigate something related to the history of English that we did not cover in depth or at all during the class. So find something to study that interests you and you want to know more about. Then you need to turn it into a visual presentation. Now a imagine you have a small space in the room. What do you want to do with your space to transmit your knowledge to your classmates?

You could create a poster or series of posters that display the key ideas you want to present.
You could create a video or a slideshow and play it on a notebook computer at your station.
You could have a hands-on exhibit at your station.
You could have some interactive games or tests.

Be creative and think of fun ways to present your knowledge.

What are some examples of what you could do?

Investigate a person and show his influence on the language.

For example, you could look at a person like Chaucer and explain his importance to the history of English. Chaucer is interesting because he is much more than just a poet and writer. He was an important diplomat and government official with close connections and influence in the English royal court. How did this affect his writing? How significant was the access that he had? Other people: Shakespeare, Lowth, King Alfred the Great, Caxton

Investigate a piece of literature or other significant work and show it's significance to the history of English.

For example, you could look at the King James Bible or the Book of Common Prayer. What are these and how did the language in them influence the English language? Or look at something like the Paston Family letters and explain what they show us about the evolution of English. Other works: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, dictionaries like Samuel Johnson's, OED, Webster's.

Take a famous work and place it in its historical context.

For example, you could take Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Who is this Macbeth person and where is all this taking place? When is this play supposed to take place, and what's really going on in England at this time. How was he connected to or how did he cause trouble for England?

Examine a variation of English.

Investigate a variation of the standard American or British version of English. You could look at something like Black English, or Australian Slang or Cockney Rhyming Slang. What historical factors lead to the unique qualities of these variations? Then provide examples of unique vocabulary or phrases and then test or quiz the visitors to your station. You can look at many of the global varieties of English as it appears all over the world.

Investigate the future of English.

How is language changing? How does technology influence the way people communicate? What are new ways that people create literature or poetry or even books and magazines since the cell phone or tablet computers became so ubiquitous? How have emojis influenced the way a new generation or your generation communicates?

Create a new form for an old piece of literature.

For example, I've seen a beautiful performance of Caedmon's hymn on the internet. And another fascinating stage performance of Beowulf in Old English by Benjamin Bagby. And a version of the Battle of Maldon as a short Lego movie.

Investigate words or jargon.

For example, I read a whole book on swearing. You can look at how swearing has evolved and what has been the power of swearing or profane language. What has been considered vulgar at different times throughout history? What is considered shocking now, and what is becoming more acceptable? Why have certain words lost their power to shock?

Learn a language.

Create a conversation or write a story using another dialect of English, whether it's Old English, or Singlish, or Chinglish, or even PIE. Practice your story of dialog and then teach it to the visitors to your station.

Investigate new information that contradicts earlier theories.

For example, during this very semester a paper was published that absolutely verifies that the Romano-Celtic inhabitants were not slaughtered by the Anglo-Saxon invaders during the last half of the 5th century. What are the implications of these findings? What are some other areas of controversy? For example, what are the competing theories against the Kurgan migration hypothesis to explain the place of origin and the spread of PIE?

This is just a starting point for you to begin your investigations. Feel free to brainstorm ideas with me. Please post your topic below, so we can avoid duplicate ideas, and so you can negotiate topics if necessary.
More ideas:
Humor-how has it changed, jokes from another era explained, jokes in historical context
Alphabet-evolution
Speech acts-pick an area and explain how the language evolved-requests, oaths
Kennings
Words of the year
Northern Cities Vowel Shift
Eye Dialects
English language testing and its effects
Corpus

After your presentation

When you are done with your presentations, post any multimedia that you used to the wiki.
In addition, post a one page summary of your presentation to the wiki after class. Your summary is state the goal of your presentation (What you expected your classmates to learn) and the key points or findings that you made during your presentation. You should also include a reference list that cites the references that you used. Use APA format. If you don't know how to do this, you need to learn how to do it on your own, or you need to get help from your writing teacher.

So in summary:

Post a summary with an additional page for citations to the wiki after your presentation.
Post any multimedia that you used to the wiki after your presentation.